1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to lane keeping assistance technology.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Vehicles that have recently been produced have adopted a variety of systems for safe driving. One of such systems is the lane keeping assistance system (LKAS). When the vehicle begins to move out of its lane due to careless driving, the lane keeping assistance system prevents the vehicle from deviating from its lane and controls the vehicle to stay in the lane.
The lane keeping assistance system analyzes images obtained by a camera in order to thereby recognize the lane. However, if there is no lane marking in the image obtained by the camera, the lane keeping assistance system fails to recognize the lane or misrecognizes the lane.
For a specific example, such a problem may be caused by a preceding vehicle that blocks the view of the camera on a congested road where the vehicles drive slowly. On the congested road, the distance between the preceding vehicle and the running vehicle is shortened, so the preceding vehicle obscures the view of the camera. In this situation, the image taken by the camera does not show the lane markings but shows the preceding vehicle. In this case, the lane keeping assistance system may fail to recognize the lane or may misrecognize the lane.
The system related to the safety of the vehicle should ensure the reliability to a certain degree in all conditions. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a lane keeping assistance system that enables reliable lane-recognition even on a congested road.